Second Generation Love
by JRastelliAuthor
Summary: Lucy Manoso has been searching for the Love her parents share Currently one shot but that depends on the R&R! Rating may change
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: the unnamed characters you'll recognize belong to JE.**

 **A/N: currently a one shot. Might change if y'all like it. I will be continuing my other fics soon- RL has been kicking my butt. This just wouldn't leave me alone.**

I grew up in a home where my parents were obviously in love and they expressed it every day. They touched each other and kissed each other all the time. As a kid, and into my teen years it was incredibly uncomfortable for me and my brothers. As an adult, I thought it was sweet and romantic. That's what I wanted out of my life.

My brothers, Ricky and Matteo had settled down young. Matteo's wife had died in a car accident and now he was a single dad. Ricky and his wife, Ana, had no kids and had no plans to have them. Ever. Gavin, my other brother, was uninterested in settling down at all. Instead he'd followed in Daddy's foot steps and worked special ops.

I figured Gavin wouldn't settle down until he was forced to, by the kind of love mom and daddy shared. As a family we generally avoided considering the alternative versions of him being forced to quit, because none of them were comfortable to our peace of mind.

I'd dated a boy throughout high school who I thought was it for me. He was sweet, kind, sexy, but respectful and polite. We had six years together before he was taken from me by cancer. We had talked marriage and children and when he was diagnosed he tried to pull away. I got my moms stubbornness and determination and refused to let him. I stuck by him until the very end. I even took a semester off from college.

I remember thinking how disappointed my parents would be in me, but the day I told them, my dad came over and hugged me, whispering how proud he was of me.

"Proud? Why, Daddy? I thought you'd be disappointed!"

"You're letting your sense of right and wrong guide you. You're not taking the easy way out. This is exactly how I raised you, and so even if I think that you belong at school, that you need to finish your education, you're not running. You're not running from something that will be hard, and hurtful, and you're putting others ahead of yourself. That's why I'm proud of you, sweetheart."

Dominic Morelli had died three months later. He was late stage four, and they told him the chances of the treatments working were minuscule. So he decided to forego the treatments. I spent every moment with him I could, and I learned a lot about what a person can handle. I spent two more months after he passed grieving, and crying, and then I told myself he wouldn't have wanted that. Instead, I worked my way through back to the Lucy Manoso that Dominic had loved.

One day I visited his grave, and I leaned against his headstone and promised to do all I could to move on with my life, to keep the trajectory that I'd set for myself before he'd gotten sick, and to be happy. When I got home I hugged my parents and then I went to pack up to head back to school.

Now I had graduated and I was working in Daddy's office as his CFO. I'd had to work up to that position, too. Daddy didn't do hand outs. He made me work hard for the job, starting as a teenager doing Mom's original job of searches. I'd eventually gotten to meet with clients and learn the actual security aspect of the business, and after I graduated he had me work with the entire core team plus his lawyers office as an intern and then his accountants office as an intern. I'd trained under his accountant, and when I got my dual business administration and accounting degrees I'd applied for the job just like anyone else would have to.

I'd had to apply three times before I got the job.

I'd been working there as the CFO for three years now. At twenty seven years old, I was anxious to begin the rest of my personal life, too. It had taken me two years after Dominic had passed away before I could start dating, and that was barely four years ago. Now I was going out every weekend, trying to find my other half, and hoping that I got a second one since I'd lost Dominic.

That Friday night I walked into my condo to find two big pairs of army issue boots on my floor, and two big old duffles lining the back wall of my living room. I dropped my purse and ran into the kitchen, where I found Gavin cooking dinner. I launched myself at him, hugging him for dear life. It had been at least a year since I'd seen him last.

"Oh god I missed you I missed you I missed you!"

He squeezed me tight and set me down on the counter, before I heard someone else come up behind me. I looked over my shoulder and stared at the panty melting sight that met my eyes. Six foot four at least, bronzed skin, more muscles than even I was used to seeing and I grew up around the Merry Men, dark blonde hair and piercing gray eyes. Wearing nothing but cargos. In. My. Living. Room.

And he was eyeing me like I was dinner.

"Stop eye fucking at my sister, Gabriel."

He visibly shook himself and extended his hand, "Gabriel Adams, ma'am. Sorry for staring, I just wasn't expecting to see something as pretty as you. I've been stuck with that fools ugly mug for way too long, Beautiful."

He reminded me a lot of Uncle Lester in both looks and personality.

"It's okay we stay here, right, Lucy?"

I nodded my head at Gavin, still awestruck by Gabriel.

After dinner, they left to go see mom and Daddy and I tidied up. I set up the guest rooms for them both and restocked the towels in the bathroom. I fielded a call from Mom asking if I needed anything while they were in town and then I went for a soak in my deep set tub. I had my curly black hair up in a messy bun on top of my head, my head phones on, and my eyes shut when I felt someone's eyes on me.

I opened them to see Gabriel leaning in the doorway with a small smile curving his lips. This guy was the best kind of trouble and as soon as I got over him staring at me naked I might just explore the options I'd have for a happily ever after with him. Isn't this similar to how mom and daddy's happily ever after began?


	2. Chapter 2

When I brought Dominic home the first time I thought mom was going to have a coronary, and I didn't think it had anything to do with Daddy cleaning his guns right there in the living room. I found out that night that mom had dated Dominic's dad, Joe Morelli. She knew how Joe was, and so did Daddy, and they immediately held it against Dominic. It took over eight months for them to trust him enough to take me out by himself. As in, without one of them, or my brothers.

They even insisted on joining me for dinner at his parents house, and that was some special kind of awkward. Mr. Morelli had married a nurse several years after him and Mom split up and she was very nice. She could even cook, which Mom still can't do thirty five years after she'd split up with Mr. Morelli. Daddy didn't care, and despite their past, the dinner wasn't too terrible, just incredibly awkward. Dominic and I snuck out to the roof while my mom and his dad were arguing about some stupid thing having to do with peanut butter.

Dad caught us up there later, having scaled the side of the house. He was fifty seven then, twelve years ago, and we never heard him coming. It's okay though, because I was just laying with my head on his shoulder, holding Dominic's hand. We were talking about the stars and the solar system. Dominic's hands were clearly visible, and when daddy sat next to us, he nodded once at Dominic.

"You can date my daughter without us coming along now, son. I still don't like you, and if you ever treat my daughter the way your father treated my wife, no one will ever find you."

"Understood Mr. Manoso."

It took us until we'd been in a relationship for two years before we slept together the first time. He was who I wanted to spend my life with and I knew he felt the same way. We'd planned for that, even down to the area we'd like to live in. He'd saved every penny he could to buy me a promise ring for my eighteenth birthday, when we'd been together for three years. It was beautiful and the fact he worked so hard at the auto shop he had a job at to buy it made it more special than anything else.

He had even asked daddy for his permission. I'd overheard the conversation although I hadn't known about the promise ring yet.

"Mr. Manoso, I'd like to ask your permission to broach the subject of marriage with Lucy." I'd heard Dad grumble something before Dominic had continued, "please let me finish. I don't intend to ask her to marry me until we graduate college. I want to be able to buy a ring for her that she deserves, and I don't think we'd get married for a long time after that, because I want to be able to give her a good wedding and a great life. I'm only asking for your permission to talk about our future."

"I don't want to see her married before she's twenty five. I'd be happy if you were the one I was walking her down the aisle to meet, though, Dominic. When the time comes, not before."

A few days later he'd given me my ring. I still wore it on a chain around my neck. I'd always love Dominic. He had been my everything for a long, long time. I was playing with the ring one day when Gabriel sat down beside me.

"What's the story there," he asked me.

"My high school boyfriend gave it to me, as a promise that one day we'd marry."

"You never did?"

"He died six years ago. Cancer. I'm not sure how to move on, because I thought he was my other half. You're only supposed to get one of those, right?"

Gabriel shrugged. " Don't know. My mom and step dad went splitsville when I was a kid and their fights were epic, I never knew my real daddy. I haven't been in a serious relationship ever. Never felt love for a woman not my mom. Now she's gone too."

I hugged him with one arm, ignoring the way he stiffened. "I'm sorry to hear that, Gabriel. Watch my parents some time. They're still in love and it's been thirty five years."

Gavin had work with the office so I brought Gabriel with me when I went in. If nothing else he could meet some of my "uncles". I was especially interested in introducing him to Lester. Lester had never settled down, never felt that sparkle for anyone. He'd felt sparks but they were sexual and not love.

We came across Lester when he was dropping some forms off in my office.

"Uncle Lester, this is Gabriel Adams. He works with Gavin."

Uncle Lester looked up and stepped back, and Gabriel had a similar reaction upon seeing Lester.

"Goddamn, I've been looking for you for thirty fucking years!"

Whoa.


	3. Chapter 3

**disclaimer: not mine**

Thirty-one years ago, Uncle Lester met and slept with a sweet girl in Mexico on her spring break. She gave him a fake name, and when his mission was over and he tried to find her he had zero luck. He saw her again one day in Arizona by chance, getting on a bus with a baby. He thought chances were good the baby was his, but was again on a mission and he never managed to track her down.

He's been trying this entire time.

Gabriel had been told that his daddy abandoned his mom and all he had was a picture to find the guy. My original assumption that they were alike and would get along well was spot on, if only because they were father and son.

Gavin and I were currently watching them down tequila shots while catching each other up, and I think we both felt out of place. This should be private but we had our mothers morbid curiosity and we couldn't help it; we were drawn like moths to flame to the story.

Mom and Daddy had been by here earlier, after hearing what had happened. I guess Daddy had caught me looking at Gabriel in a way he didn't like because he pulled me aside.

"Sweetheart, you know he's special forces like Gavin and like I was, right?"

"Yes."

"He's not the best bet for a relationship. He still has years left on his contract, and he may not want to quit when it's up. I don't want that life for you, just like I didn't want it for your mom."

I had hugged Daddy, "if it turns out he is to me what mom is to you, I won't be able to back away. You know that. And all I've ever wanted is what you have with Mom, even if it's just for a moment."

When they looked at each other, even now, you could still see the love, you could see that they wouldn't survive without each other now. They still danced in the kitchen, and I'm pretty sure they still had sex, which at 69 years old neither of them had any business doing in my opinion. They held hands, and they kissed in public, and I swear they read each other's minds sometimes. They supported each other no matter what. And I wasn't about to settle for less. I'd had something close with Dominic.

I was too much like mom to not be compatible with someone like Dad.

Uncle Lester and mom had dated very briefly, I knew that. She's ultimately picked Daddy and Uncle Lester had picked the gazillions of women he was constantly picking up when I was growing up. He'd calmed down now that he was in his sixties, thank god.

I watched Gabriel with him. They had similar mannerisms and similar looks. I honestly felt Gabriel was different from Lester in that he wasn't as much of a womanizer, but I couldn't be sure. I felt like Gabriel had more depth that would be easier to figure out, at least, than Lester's was.

Now they were sharing war stories of women they'd slept with and I decided it was time to go to bed. I excused myself and as I lay in my bed I contemplated all the ways life didn't go the way it should.

If things had turned out the right way, I'd be married to Dominic. I'd be Lucy Morelli, and I'd have a baby by now I'm sure. Probably dark haired and dark eyed, definitely full of sass but equally as sweet and smart. I'd still be going to monthly dinners at Joe and Felicity's, and I'd probably work less. I love my job but I'd cut back if I had something to cut back for. I wouldn't feel such longing when I watched Matteo play with his little girl, Saralyn.

If things turned out the right way, Saralyn wouldn't grow up without her mom, and Matteo wouldn't have that devastated look in his eyes.

Gabriel and Lester would have found each other way before now.

We had no control over how things turned out in the end, and the way things stood now… well I wasn't unhappy exactly, just unfulfilled. The closest thing I had to a love relationship was Sure Thing, my vibrator.

To be honest, is felt this emptiness long before Dominic had passed. Right before we found out his diagnosis I'd received one of my own. I was pregnant. I had waited to tell him. To tell anyone. I don't know why now, I just had a feeling. Two weeks after Dominic told me the bad news I woke up to my bed covered in blood, and I knew without a doubt I'd lost our baby. I had let everyone think the desolation I felt was because I knew I wasn't going to get my forever after, but in reality… well, even if you've never met them, losing a child is brutal emotionally. It's not talked about, and I felt shame in my bodies inability to do it's one simple job as a woman.

I was glad now, after watching Matteo and Saralyn, that I wasn't raising a child as a single parent. I think it's a lot harder dealing with being a single parent when the other parent has been ripped from you rather than them abandoning you and their child. I don't know for sure, but that's my take.

Someday maybe, I'd have everything I wanted emotionally. For now, though, best to stop the pity party.

 **A/n: on 4/17/15 I experienced an early miscarriage. My first child had not been planned but this one definitely was. I ran through the gamut of emotions from total devastation to failure to anger to massive depression and essentially obsession and mania. I tried so hard to get pregnant again, and every month that I didn't I got more angry and felt more failure. I'm very old fashioned in my personal beliefs for me personally- this doesn't extend to anyone else whatsoever, be who you are and make the choices best for you - and I have spent my entire life feeling like my only job is to make babies, be a good wife, a good mom. Whatever that means. I've worked two to three jobs before to provide for my older son when I was a single mom. I am a stay at home mom now, but I'm looking for a job out of the home. But with my miscarriage I felt like I'd failed. I failed my husband, myself, my existing child. Then, in March of 2016 I ended up pregnant with twins. Miracles for sure. I still to do this day battle depression and failure over that miscarriage, but I also know the statistics and I know I didn't fail and I refuse to be silent about it. Miscarriages aren't talked about. They should be. Since this week, this is so personal a subject for me, I thought I'd write about it. Love and light and support to all of you, whatever you have experienced.**


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